Day Two

Woke up tied, sore limbs but with very high spirits.

We left the accommodation again at 0800 ready and rearing to get onto the site. We got there and took some time to look at the previous days work. The team could not believe how much work was completed yesterday. Sam and I completed the Site safety check then the team were allowed to get on with the build. Aamon and Pearl met us on site and congratulated us on the work that we had done so far.

Throughout the day Aamon and pearl had to leave the site as there were two other builds happening in the near by area. It was great as the team knew what needed to be done without being prompted. It felt really good to know that they trusted us to continue without them being there and supervising us.

Everyone fell into their roles in which they felt comfortable doing, some mixing Dagga, some building internal walls, some moving blocks and some preparing the external walls. It was a great feeling to see that we all assumed a role and worked on whatever the build required without being told.

For an hour in the afternoon, Ashley went and had her hair braided by Princess's neighbour and Josh went along for moral support and chief photographer, and they came back having had an amazing experience with their face painted with clay (Zulu sun screen) and knowing and learning more about the community bond they have in that area.

It was amazing to see that the house started to look like a house (sounds silly to say) but all of us have never been in a situation to have hands on experience of this type of work except Shaun of course!!!!!

During the afternoon Natasha, Anthony and Natalie applied a bag wash of cement to one of the external walls and Emma and Dan were building walls internally when Princess came over to the build to visit her new home. She has been watching everything that we had been doing over the past two days but due to problems with mobility she had not ventured onto site until this afternoon. Just seeing her reactions to the progress we had made on her new home was really emotional and blew us away as she was so lost for words.

Throughout the day Alex SD, Tom and Matt worked incredibly hard shifting blocks, making dagga, preparing walls and moving scaffolding from different ends of the build.

Aamon approached the team at the end of the day and said that he was very proud of our hard work, but it is thanks to Aamon that we had materials and facilities available for us to do the work at all, as the organisation and logistics involved is very complex and without him, Pearl, Carl, and Bob we would not have been able to achieve so much is such a short time.

Sala Gashle (Stay Well)